FINE
by HuffynDK
Summary: Post finale, no real spoilers. Peter and Neal discuss the definition of fine among other things. WARNING: No violence, just some strong language some people might find offensive hence the T rating.


"You do know what fine means, right?"

"It means, well, fine, like, I'm not dead. I'm not or well not totally mortally wounded, and I'm not yet slitting my wrists." Neal sighed. He felt again like an errant school boy. He'd made a really stupid decision and Peter wasn't going to let up until Neal recognized this. Actually, Neal conceded he made several stupid, no Neal amended, less than judicious decisions. He never should have had Alex break into Diana's house. That was a big no-no. He shouldn't have palmed the key to his tracker. He shouldn't have removed his tracker. He shouldn't have pocketed the gun. He shouldn't have played commando with Fowler. He shouldn't have withheld all this from Peter.

Peter rolled his eyes at Neal's definition. "Ah, Neal, there isn't any totally or not when dealing with a mortal wound. It either is or it isn't."

"I beg to differ on that definition. There are different degrees of mortality." Neal didn't really know if there were but he wasn't ready to concede defeat just yet. He would apologize but well he would do it on his time frame.

"Mortality means death. Dead is dead in any book. You don't come back from dead."

"People are given CPR. They come back from dead."

"Not all of the time and that's not what we are talking about." Peter growled. Neal did have an answer for everything and it was annoying when there was a chance it made sense. "I don't ever wish to perform CPR on you, or send you back to prison."

"I don't want to go back to prison. I guess, until just a little bit ago, I would have to say I didn't care about being dead. I figured dead was good. That's why I didn't tell you. I figured I would be dead before you found out. You beat me to it."

"Why? Why in the hell would you think…okay so let me get this straight. You were going to kill Fowler and then kill yourself?"

"Your words, not mine. Actually I perceived that we would have likely killed each other simultaneously. I could still join Kate in that scenario. If I killed myself, I would go to hell."

Peter sighed. He forgot sometimes underneath the glossy exterior, the interior of Neal Caffery was a young, confused, slightly arrogant total mess. "You were going to run."

Neal balked. "No, I wasn't going to run. I swear I wasn't. I told you I wasn't going to run." Neal was honestly insulted. He didn't tell the truth often, well at least the whole truth, and when he did, he found it very offensive to have it questioned.

"You were going to run." Peter said again.

"I repeat, I was NOT going to run. If I was going to run, what in the fucking hell am I doing still sitting here in New York? Sorry, it's not exactly the nirvana of the western world. I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you trying to salvage the only friendship that is really worth a damn to me, and I sure as hell wouldn't be getting insulted!"

"You were going to escape life into death."

"Wh…no I….well…..look Peter, that is totally different. I gave Alex a note to give to you later explaining everything."

"Great. I get to find the body of the only person other than El I give a shit about and then get a note from a woman I don't like and don't trust further than I could throw her?"

"Actually, I wouldn't even trust her that far. She's light; you're strong and with the right hang time and aerodynamic conditions you could get her pretty far. I don't even trust Alex that far. No, out of my sight and my trust meter falls rapidly." Neal decided to study his cuticles, not that he had any. He wondered again what it was about Peter that made these things slip out before he could stop them.

"Yet, you use her?" Peter had been surprised and a bit taken aback by that admission. He hadn't counted on hearing that.

"She has certain skills that I don't possess. Mozzie never taught me simple B & E. He thought it was beneath my talents, not to mention too incredibly dangerous. He told me many home owners had guns. He said I was better suited to using my brains and my bod…good looks to go far."

"Don't think I didn't catch that little near slip of the tongue, Caffery. We'll discuss it later. Now, we were discussing you and a stunt you pulled, and your fascination with the word "fine" and how your definition doesn't match with the rest of the world." Peter was glad he'd borrowed an interrogation room. There was no room for Neal to escape.

"Have you ever considered for a moment that my definition of 'fine' might in fact be the correct interpretation and the rest of the world is incorrect?" Neal glared at Peter. Peter had dared challenge his intellect and call him wrong. Neal respected Peter more than any other man alive but respect had its limits.

"I might consider it a possibility, provided I could understand and completely trust what goes on in that gray matter of yours."

"Why do you need to understand?" Neal was feeling genuinely curious, even Kate and Mozzie had never attempted to understand his thinking, let alone to really care to.

Peter sighed. "When people are partners, it usually helps to understand the thinking process of each other to keep from doing stupid things like, oh shooting each other or sending each other to prison, or here's a good one – identifying each other in a morgue!" Neal could irritate Peter like no other person he'd ever worked with – however Peter really didn't want it any other way.

"Well, I don't have the authority to send you to prison so you're pretty safe there, not that I would want to send you to prison. Orange would look even more hideous on your skin tones than mine, besides you get ugly mean on instant coffee. You'd shank someone or be shanked in about three days, a week tops. Theoretically, we couldn't identify each other in a morgue because well, if that was the case one or both of us would be dead. It ain't going to be you. El's too pretty to be a widow any time soon. You don't let me carry a gun and well I still hate the damn things and don't have a deep desire to pick up another one for a very long time. Besides, with the exception of a skeet rifle, you're a better shot than me."

"I distinctly remember beating someone at skeet shooting."

"I distinctly remember throwing the contest, and the sun got in my eyes and ruined the shot. On a cloudy day and no cover to keep, I could out shoot you any day."

"In your dreams, buddy. I was taking it easy on you so that I didn't totally mop the floor with your fragile ego."

"MY fragile ego? Did you just imply I had a fragile ego? Well, okay, I do have to concede that point. No man with a fragile ego does the New York Times Crossword in pen."

"Pen is easier to see and read."

"Pen also proclaims, 'I'm as smart if not smarter than you are, come bask in my genius'. I do mine in Sharpie! Sharpie gives the right feeling of arrogance and smugness, plus it drives Moz nuts as it leaks through and ruins the advice columns. He reads them to laugh over the hordes of people he has convinced himself are more mixed up and neurotic than him. He reads everyone to me and cackles."

"Ok, Neal, chalk that up to a mental picture I neither wanted nor needed."

"Welcome to my world."

"Let's get back to the topic; you are an expert at dodging. What goes on in that brain of yours?"

"Are you really sure you want to understand? I mean, doesn't that then destroy one of the great mysteries of your life that make it worthwhile?"

Peter shook his head at Neal. "I think I will live. Answer the question."

"I'm really not sure how to answer the question. I don't really spend a lot of time in my brain. Frankly it's a weird and scary place for me, I wouldn't begin to know how to understand it, or explain it to you. Trust me; it's some place where you really don't want to be." Neal looked down and shuddered.

Peter studied Neal and knew there was a profound truth to what Neal had just said. He figured that right at this moment, he needed to step back before he drove Neal deep underground behind his fortresses again. "All right, we'll skip that for now." Peter leaned back. "Seriously, you scared the hell out of me. You weren't acting even remotely like yourself."

"I know. I scared the hell out of myself. I don't even know how much was thinking and plotting and how much was acting like a damn animal on instinct." Neal wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"There is nothing wrong with operating on instinct. Self-preservation is usually a fairly strong one."

"Instincts get you killed. Instincts lead you to lie to the one person that you swore, and meant it and mean it, that you would never lie to. It makes you betray the only family you got. It makes you willing to take another human life, even one as slimy as Fowler, without caring because you feel deep inside it's a case of kill or he'll kill someone else I care about or me, but well I seriously sometimes doubt that would be a loss to the human race in general." Neal got up and began pacing. "It's like I was there, Peter, but I really wasn't there. I could see what I was doing but I couldn't stop it or control it. It's like watching yourself in a movie and there is no damn director. It started out small but it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it's this huge damn snow ball careening down Everest. I never consciously wanted to hurt you or Diana, or well even the FBI, though if you tell Moz that I will deny it and claim you must have been delusional. Seriously, why the hell don't you put me back into prison? It's safer than being shackled to someone whose an out of control animal inside."

"Safer, possibly, but life would be a hell of a lot duller and a lot less fun."

"Fun? You mean you still like me, even after you've just seen what I am?"

"THAT was not YOU. I just needed to hear you admit it to me and to yourself. Neal, you have been through a lot of stress. Stress does weird things to people. It kicks in a mode in a person's brain, even one as highly developed as yours, that is a response that says "I fight or I flee" and the Neal Caffery I know is no coward. If you feel something you care about is in danger, you fight. You fight longer and harder than frankly about any person I know. It over-rode justice and kicked you into revenge. It's not unique. I still struggle with whether I want revenge on the SOBs who nearly killed you – and are still trying I might add - or whether I want justice. I want to say that I'm going to go for justice, I want to believe it, but I won't know for sure until the final moment when I'm looking at that bastard or bastards mano y mano. I might just end up plugging him in the damn head and you me and El run the hell out of NYC."

"You wouldn't be able to do that. You're well you're you. You're John Wayne on the white horse coming in to save the stupid idiots like me from ourselves. You're like on Mount Olympus or something." Neal couldn't picture his Peter being anything like him. Peter was pure.

"I don't know that John Wayne ever lied."

"You think what you did was lied? Ok, I was annoyed by it but the part in me that could still think clearly knows why you did it. You were protecting me, both from whoever in the hell has decided I'm better off dead, and from myself since, alright, I'll concede there are times, very remote and far between times, when I have no impulse control and do rush off where angels fear to tread."

"Remote and far between? Neal, you swung like Tarzan on curtains through a window into who the hell knew what with an antique gun you'd never even TRIED to fire. You leap out a judges window and jump down awnings. You"

"I think you've made your point. The judge escape was different, it was a calculated risk. Before you bring it up, so was the going into the air tight vault and waiting for you to get in, so was the clinic. I did a firm risk assessment and well aside from the judges chambers, I knew I had an ace in the hole who, no matter how stupid I might get is always going to come and get into the mud with me and pull my bacon out of the flames."

"I like bacon, what can I say." Peter grinned. "You do know though, jumping back to the original topic that got us here, the real definition of fine."

"I told you what the real definition of fine is. It's my definition."

"Ah, no. When you say you are fine, it means you are conceding to the world that you are actually *Fucked up * *Insecure * *Neurotic* and *Emotional*."

"WHAT? Ooh no that is a low blow. I'm….Well not usually….alright I do resemble all of those, but I do want it to be noted that Moz is more neurotic than I am. He wrote the book, he's only letting me beta certain selected chapters."

"Next time he lets you beta, you bring them to me first."

"We good?" Neal asked nervously.

"Yeah, we are good. We just needed to clear the air a bit. I still want you as my partner, you're still my friend, and I still trust you on most things except to decide what's best for you at times."

"I'm cool with that because frankly Peter, I don't trust myself. I wouldn't expect anyone else to trust me totally."

"And that is a topic for another session. Right now lunch break is about over. Pick up the trash and throw it. We got work to do." Peter couldn't resist mussing Neal's hair.

"Nooooo. I FINALLY had gotten it perfect. Every curl was in its proper place for maximum effect, now it's RUINED! It's going to take me hours to get it back."

"I could save you the trouble. I could make you an appointment with my barber."

"You don't have a barber, you have a BUTCHER! This hair in the hands of someone who thinks razors are a hair cutting implement? Peter, that's….that's well defacing art. It's like someone painting Groucho glasses on the Mona Lisa or spraying graffiti on the Coliseum. It's a crime against humanity."

"No, those suits are. There's a reason they went out of style in the 60s. The drug haze that told people they looked good wore off."

"At least my suits WERE once in style. I'm telling June you insulted Byron's wardrobe. We'll see how much of her good coffee and treats you get for a while. I don't recall Columbo ever starting a fashion trend."

Peter felt his heart soar and relief fill him. They would still have struggles, but HIS Neal was back in control again and he'd do anything to keep him there.


End file.
